[ad_1]
As part of the civil disobedience movement led by Anil Ghanwat, Swatantra Bharat Party had demanded to lift the GM moratorium in India, a Feed India paper has said.
It also contains a chapter on glyphosate – a major herbicide which also plays a crucial role in many herbicide-tolerant (HT) GM crops. This chemical has been used since 1974 and to date not a single national regulator across the world considers this to seriously harmful, let alone a carcinogen. Its use was non-controversial until 2018 when some rather strange court proceedings in the USA led to canards being generated about it.
- Bayer has been sued for abiding strictly with the law
Bayer has been sued in the USA not for breaking any law, but for following the law.
In 2018 adverse judgements were made by lower courts in the USA against Bayer on the basis that it did not warn users that glyphosate was carcinogenic. But how can Bayer possibly make such a claim, let alone issue a “warning”, when the regulator – the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of the USA – has made it clear in written submissions to the court that putting such a warning on any label would not only be unwarranted but would breach the US law.
For decades, the EPA has exercised its delegated authority under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) to find that Roundup and its active ingredient, glyphosate, do not cause cancer in humans. Nevertheless, the US courts have blithely ignored both the law and the EPA’s submissions.
But things are changing. On 16 August 2021, Bayer filed a Writ of Certiorari with the US Supreme Court against the May 2021 decision of the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in the Monsanto Co. v. Hardeman case.
The US Supreme Court only takes a very few cases every year but it has got interested in this one. On 13 December 2021, it invited the Solicitor General of the USA to file a brief that expresses the views of the United States government. It is almost certain that the EPA will rehash its 2019 brief to the lower courts and confirm that there is no basis for any adverse findings against Bayer because it followed the labelling laws strictly.
Bayer considers that the EPA label approval under the FIFRA pre-empts the “failure to warn” claims brought under state laws. That is common sense: How can any business operate if it is to be sued under some peculiar State law for complying with the national law? It seems inevitable that the US Supreme Court will come down heavily on the lower courts that have failed to take into account the views of the EPA.
Regardless of the US Supreme Court’s decision (expected later this year), the science is clear: that glyphosate is not a carcinogen. And only the science matters in such matters.
- Regulators are clear that this is safe to use
There has been contamination of the public perception in this regard since 2015 by a finding of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC, a United Nations body charged with supporting the World Health Organisation – WHO) that glyphosate is “probably” carcinogenic.
But it is really important point to understand that the methodology used by national regulators is quite different to what the WHO uses. For example, the IARC asks: can glyphosate (ever) cause cancer? The answer would probably be yes. According to the IARC, alcohol is absolutely “proven to cause cancer”, along with tobacco, betel nuts, going out in the sun and outdoor pollution. Even red meat “probably” causes cancer – as do very hot beverages, night shift work, emissions from frying food.
Unlike the WHO’s medical specialists with abstract goals, regulators are not theoreticians. Their job is to ensure the safe use of chemicals in their country. So they ask a more specific question: If an agent is used in accordance with prescribed procedures, does it cause cancer or has it caused cancer among users? The answer to that, in the case of glyphosate, is “no”. All regulators are unanimous about this, that glyphosate does not cause cancer. Large scale studies of farmers who have used glyphosate in the proper way for decades have confirmed that there is no exceptional cancer risk to glyphosate users.
In any case, just because something “probably” causes cancer (if consumed in excess) doesn’t mean we ban it. We know that alcohol is proven to causes cancer but we do not ban it. That is because we undertake a cost-benefit analysis to assess the trade-offs involved. Virtually anything can be harmful in excess: eating a lot of sugar can kill. As Buddha said: we need to follow the middle path.
It is not an expectation that farmers will go about drinking glyphosate. Farmers who take adequate precautions while using glyphosate and prevent it from getting into their eyes, are on a safe wicket. A fuller list of regulators who have studied glyphosate and approved its use is available in the Feed India paper.
Bayer’s Writ of Certiorari observes: “EPA has authorized Roundup for sale, repeatedly approved Roundup’s labeling without a cancer warning, and recently informed pesticide registrants that including a cancer warning on the labeling of a glyphosate-based pesticide would render it “misbranded” in violation of federal law.” As noted above, it is truly Kafkaesque that a business can be sued in the USA for following the labelling requirements of the law.
One can only hope that sanity will return in the USA and this storm in a tea cup will blow over. Personally, I have used glyphosate for probably two decades in my home in Australia to contain weeds. If I spray once a month, I am able to keep my house mostly free of weeds. Further, I have personally engaged with APVMA, Australia’s chemical regulator – as part of my former official responsibilities. They are a professional organisation with highly qualified experts. I would be willing to accept its findings. The APVMA, too, has assessed glyphosate and found it to be non-carcinogenic.
Disclaimer
Views expressed above are the author’s own.
END OF ARTICLE
[ad_2]
Source link